Ok, this is just odd. If your link::bind-ip is set to "*" then unreal will bind to the ip of your last listen line.
So, basically if you have:
listen 1.2.3.4:6667;
listen 1.2.3.5:6667;
listen 127.0.0.1:8000;

[2013-05-10] Bram Matthys <syzop@vulnscan.org> (a033da33a60e):
- Fix strange issue where linking didn't work because UnrealIRCd would
bind to (for example) the loopback interface before connecting to the
remote server.
In addition to that, we now don't bind() at all when bind-ip is not
present or is set to "*".

katsklaw: if there's still any issue with current devel repository, let us know!